


On the Borderline

by mechanicaljewel



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Borderline Personality Disorder, Gen, Mental Health Issues, Meta, Movie: Skyfall (2012), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-30
Updated: 2014-08-21
Packaged: 2018-01-17 13:22:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1389253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mechanicaljewel/pseuds/mechanicaljewel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A psychological analysis of Raoul Silva.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part I - The DSM-IV Criteria

**Author's Note:**

> I am in no way, shape, or form attempting to argue that Silva bears no responsibility for his actions. I am, to some extent, saying "poor baby," because undiagnosed and untreated mental illness is a tragedy no matter who you are or what you have done. If you think the two preceding sentences contradict each other, please leave now. (Also, as will be explored below, such black-and-white thinking can be indicative of BPD, so I would find the whole argument highly ironic in the first place). Alternatively, please appreciate that we are talking about a fictional character and that one of the purposes of fiction is to explore aspects of the human psyche and experience that are dangerous in real life. (see: the literary theory of catharsis).
> 
> I am also not suggesting in any way that people with BPD are inherently violent, poised to become Bond villains at the drop of a hat. Actually, people with BPD are less likely than other PDs to be violent, a thematically resonant paradox I will explore in relation to Silva herein. In fact, BPD is a highly stigmatized disorder that does not deserve to be. In the course of my research, I've read several upsetting accounts by people with BPD in which they were not informed of their diagnosis because their own doctors believed they would be better off not knowing. How this does not qualify as malpractice I have yet to figure out. In fact, with treatment by professionals who are well-educated about the disorder (of which there are far too few) and proven treatment techniques, most people afflicted can go into life-long remission.
> 
> Final caveat: It would be generous to even call me an armchair psychologist. I have done research from books and websites aimed at the lay audience, as well as memoirs and YouTube vlogs by people who have been diagnosed with BPD (a partial bibliography will be posted at the end of Part III). My degrees are in English, philosophy, and law, and at no point in my formal education did I take a single psychology course. Most of my practical knowledge of psychology comes from my own treatment (for depression, anxiety, and ADHD). I do not assert any sort of expertise and would welcome any critiques and corrections from those who do.
> 
> Now, if you've made it this far, you might as well continue reading.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since I started my research into BPD, the APA has released its latest overhaul, the DSM-5. While the rubric for BPD has changed in organization, all of the DSM-IV criteria still fit into the new framework, so I have kept the DSM-IV criteria for organization's sake. Perhaps later on down the line I'll do a thorough re-evaluation using the DSM-5.

Some time ago, I started exploring the possible underlying psychological conditions that may have influenced the actions of Raoul Silva throughout the course of _Skyfall_ and his backstory. Since then, I have become utterly convinced that Raoul Silva aka Tiago Rodrigues has Borderline Personality Disorder, and I am here to give my blow-by-blow breakdown of how I arrived at this conclusion.

Now, trying to do a proper "diagnosis" is a fool's errand, since we are dealing with a fictional character with an hour of screentime, not an actual human being who can be asked in-depth questions about his childhood and feelings, but I figured it was worth exploring further, if only to help me write him with cohesive characterization. 

The broad definition of Borderline Personality Disorder in the DSM-IV is:

> A pervasive pattern of instability of interpersonal relationships, self-image, and affects, and marked impulsivity

There are **nine** criteria, of which a patient must show **five** as part of a pervasive pattern. Below I explore the **seven** I can fairly clearly discern from Silva's words and actions throughout  _Skyfall_. If we presume that these are _examples of regular behaviors_ , rather than isolated incidents, they point quite strongly to the likelihood that he has BPD.

I first began exploring the possibility that Silva might have a personality disorder when my research into "psychopathy" left me unsatisfied. Psychopathy is not recognized by the DSM, and I found most of the literature I read on it to be alarmist and overly broad. Detractors of psychopathy pointed to (DSM-recognized) personality disorders as what people tend to mean when they call someone a psychopath. After reading the DSM criteria for Anti-Social and Avoidant, I came to the **first listed criterion** for Borderline:

> frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment. 

Holy shit. Silva's entire motive revolves around feelings of abandonment. Five months of torture was not what drove him to use his cyanide, it was figuring out that he had been deliberately given up to the Chinese by M. This is a promising start.

 **Criterion 2** refers to:

> ...unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation.

His relationship with M in a nutshell. He talks about how "I protected  _you_ " during his torture, indicating that he valued M at least as much, if not moreso, as the state secrets he knew. We know from his decision to take the cyanide that he would rather die than live knowing she "betrayed" him, indicating he valued her approval more than his own life. The "reason" he attributed his cyanide-survival to was that he needed to look in her eyes one last time-- her very existence was the reason for his. Yet he still denigrated her to Bond and wanted nothing more than to humiliate and kill her.

It is quite easy to believe (and indeed widely assumed and accepted by most of the fandom) that Silva was obsessed with M going way back to when he was Tiago, an agent working for her in Station H. One might debate whether it was a sexual and/or romantic infatuation, a child-like attachment, an idealization and devotion to her as a queen or goddess figure, or some combination of the three, but it seems foolish to argue that it was none of the above.

This intense attachment to and idealization of M by Tiago could have been a major contributing factor to his "brilliance" as an agent and why he was then M's favorite. If he wanted nothing more than to please her, to earn her approval, then he would have stopped at nothing to do so, using every ounce of his daring and cunning to the point of recklessness, much as Bond does. We know (because of her relationship with Bond) she would respond favorably to that, and sooner or later he would have ample reason to believe he was her favorite. 

On the unstable end of relationships, we have his relationship with Severine. We believe she probably once loved him. We have no way of knowing for sure how he felt about her at first, but we know by the end, he literally considered her superfluous, speaking of her as if she were disposable property.

**Criterion 3:**

> identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self 

These neuroses often manifest by defining oneself in relationship to others, basically allowing other people to define who you are, often without them even knowing. The emotional breakdown that followed M not just refusing to use his real name, but threatening to strike it from the MI6 memorial wall, erasing what little there was left of his past identity, can be interpreted to show that he didn't just think of her as his reason for living, but as the holder of his true identity. Her betrayal is what lead to him starting a new life under a different name, whoever he used to be was stripped from him by M, and in his mind, only she could give it back. When she refused to, he completely lost it, yelling at her (voice cracking, possibly near tears) and prying out his upper jaw prosthetic, to show her "her work". Much like he said to Bond earlier in the film, this is what she made him. 

Yes, as far as Silva is concerned, she made him not just as he is now, but by telling Bond she made  _him_ too, Silva is implying that she made the agent Tiago Rodrigues who he was as well. When Bond asserts that he made his own choices (i.e. he made himself), Silva says indulgently "You think you did, that's her genius." Silva thinks Bond is naive, because he himself can't possibly imagine feeling like entirely his own person outside of her.

Silva also shows external indications of his unstable identity. He changed his eye and hair color dramatically at some point after escaping the Chinese; Bardem and Mendes have talked about how Silva was trying to look like an angel because it was the exact opposite of how he felt inside. BPD memoirist Kiera Van Gelder talks about how she constructed a goth/fetish-scene identity to retreat into when she felt the need to completely embrace the hopelessness and "be the pain" she felt constantly. Likewise, "Raoul Silva" is a completely fabricated and constructed identity aimed at trying to pretend the pain isn't there. He wants to be Tiago Rodrigues again, but he can't, because M took that identity away from him.

**Criterion 4:**

> impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., spending, sex, Substance Abuse, reckless driving, binge eating). 

It's not a stretch to say he was probably oversexed. He "rescued" a sex worker and kept her as a lover, and he very quickly made the decision to use his sexuality to intimidate Bond in a seductive, rather than overtly threatening, way. Despite his claim that he has nothing superfluous in his life, his spending is notably profligate by the few possessions we see that are not "work-related" (yacht, Prada clothes, 50 year old whiskey, antique dueling pistols, etc). Not to mention he was a career criminal who stole an entire island.

And of course, before his was a career criminal, he was essentially James Bond (another reason to assume he is oversexed), living a high-stakes life, putting himself in harm's way on a regular basis. And it's entirely plausible that drinking, gambling, and reckless driving also figured into his time as an MI6 agent, same as Bond. The most notable recklessness from his time as an agent was of course his hacking of the Chinese "beyond his brief". 

**Criteria 6 & 8:**

> affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (e.g., intense episodic dysphoria, irritability, or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days)...inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights) 

A proposed rename for BPD is  _Emotional Dysregulation Disorder_. People with BPD experience emotions at the extremes for longer periods of time than the general population. Van Gelder likens the way she feels emotions to an exposed nerve. According to the seminal text  _I Hate You -- Don't Leave Me_ , the base mood of a person with BPD "is not usually calm and controlled, but more often either hyperactive and irrepressible or pessimistic, cynical, and depressed." Silva's mood shifts throughout the film, but to suggest it is at any point calm or controlled would be laughable. Even when he  _appears_ calm or controlled, it's quite obvious that just below the surface an irrepressible energy bubbles. As for anger, he explodes at M for refusing to use his real name, shoots Mallory for interfering with his attack on M, shoots a random police officer for no reason as he retreats from the hearing having failed to kill M. He has no emotional middle ground; he's either manic or angry or upset, or even oddly euphoric. He is able to support a mere façade of calm and control, which will be explored more in Part III.

**Criterion 9:**

> transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms

Dissociation can refer to a number of behaviors and mental states: the aforementioned "splitting" of identities, as well as black-and-white thinking, which contributes to an actual-ideal self-discrepancy. Basically, when a person with BPD does or causes something that they think of as "bad", they cannot integrate the perception of their ideal self with their actual behavior. Now, it's hard for most of us to take responsibility for our actions and to admit when we have failed to live up to our own standard, but for someone with BPD, it can basically be impossible.

We see the actual-ideal splitting in Silva when he expresses anguish at seeing M injured when he gets to the chapel to kill her. He says, "What have _they_ done to you?"  _They_ are Silva's own mercenaries, but he cannot possibly conceive of the fact that he is in any way responsible. Despite everything that came before, when he sees M hurt, he sees it as a bad thing. And his thought process does a complete 180. He couldn't have done something this bad, he couldn't have hurt Her like this, he would never!  _They_ did it to Her, whoever  _they_ are, surely  _they_ are not people he would ever associate with, not when _they_ would hurt Her like this.

Likewise, I think it's fair to assume that he takes no responsibility for what he even did that led her to give him up: hacking the Chinese beyond his brief. Something about that had to have been justified to him, and probably contributes to why he turned on her, because  _she did this to him_. He did nothing to deserve it (never mind that she probably warned him to stop before she made her decision to give him up.) Which itself feeds into the paranoid ideation that M giving him up to the Chinese was a _betrayal_ , a personal slight, instead of a professional hazard, or the consequence of his own actions.

~~~

So there you have it. In the course of  _Skyfall_ , Raoul Silva displays behaviors indicative of, or that at least strongly gesture towards, seven of the nine criteria for Borderline Personality Disorder. But of course, human psychology is far more complex than mere lists to tick off. BPD manifests itself differently in each person and Silva has far more layers to peel back, which I shall do in future parts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part II will go into more depth about the manifestations of BPD in Silva's behavior beyond the DSM criteria, as well as discussion into potential causes and how his post-China Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder may have impacted his BPD.


	2. Part II - In the Shadows

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Going forward in this analysis of Silva's psychology, we will be getting into more speculative territory than before, though it is my intention that every personality trait or behavioral quirk I attribute to Silva can reasonably be derived from his on-screen behavior, or cues from other characters, namely M and Sévérine. In light of both Silva and the film itself drawing clear parallels between him and Bond, I will be using Bond's personality and behavior (though I do not believe Bond has BPD) to fill some of the holes in our knowledge about Silva and especially Tiago. Some of my readings of his character are admittedly recursive-- if a behavior or trait that has no immediate link to BPD takes on more weight if he does have it, I will take as strongly suggestive of BPD. I welcome any well-reasoned criticism of the characterization I have derived from all available information.

Now that we have gone through the DSM-IV criteria and established the likelihood of Silva having BPD on that basis alone, I'm going to explore the "diagnosis" and other aspects of his psychology in greater depth. You may have noticed in Part I that one episode of behavior may have been indicative of two or three criteria, or I mentioned some episodes with less analysis than you may have liked; these are the areas I will be expanding upon, in addition to probable causes and co-morbidities.

**Causes and Influences**

The causes of BPD, like just about every mental disorder, are not particularly understood. There is some indication that it may have genetic components, as well as some relation to irregularities in certain brain structures (like the amygdala--responsible for both fear and pleasure responses--and the hippocampus--responsible for the formation of memories). But when it comes to the question of nature vs. nurture, psychologists split the difference and basically say "both." Psychologists more or less agree there's probably an in-born propensity for it, but it usually takes external forces to flip the switch on.

Childhood

Most (but not all) people with BPD have a history of abuse or neglect in childhood, but not all people who are abused or neglected as children will develop BPD. So what of Silva's--or rather Tiago Rodriguez's, childhood? I think it's fairly safe to assume that his was not the happiest of childhoods. He, like Bond, was almost certainly an orphan. As M said, "Orphans always make the best recruits." While she is obviously referring to Bond in that moment, it would be a waste of the dozens of other parallels drawn between the two of them to suggest she is not also talking about Silva. If her current favorite was an orphan, surely her "brilliant" former favorite also once fell into the "best recruits" category, thus implying his orphanhood. Plus, that statement carries much more weight if you read it as her talking about both Bond and Silva. In that moment she is depending solely on one of her best recruits to protect her from another--which one is  _the_ best? She can only hope it's Bond.

Another reason to presume Tiago's childhood was not a happy one is his reaction to reading off Bond's psychological evaluation when he gets to "unresolved childhood trauma". It's subtle, notable more because of what he _doesn't_ do, how he _doesn't_ react. He pauses, stares silently at Bond for a few moments, face gone slack, devoid of any readable expression-- the total opposite of his behavior both before and after that moment. He is not mocking Bond as he did when he read out the "alcohol and substance addiction indicated" line just before, with his editorial "Oof!" and theatrically pained expression. No, his reaction to Bond's "childhood trauma" is stone-cold silence, the theatricality and artifice of the rest of his introductory performance gone for just a few fleeting moments. What else could have been going through his mind at that moment if not his own childhood trauma?

So, a traumatic childhood, up to and including orphanhood seems incredibly likely for Silva. I also do not think it is too much of a stretch to suggest that, unlike Bond who lost both parents in the same accident, young Tiago might have lost one parent well before the other, perhaps even too early to know at all. While it's tempting to say he lost his mother first and in some way looked to M to be a replacement for her, it's also not uncommon for children with BPD from single-parent homes to idealize the parent they have, so his father may well have been the absent one. Or perhaps they both were and Tiago was raised by his grandmother and he was attempting to replace _her_ with M when he went to Hong Kong. However Tiago's family was configured, it's fair to say that at the very least there was the opportunity for a sufficient level of neglect to contribute to the development of BPD _and_ his complex about M.

Sexuality

Another major contributing factor to the development and/or exacerbation of BPD relates to the weak sense of self indicated in Criterion 2 of the DSM-- the invalidation of one's thoughts, emotions, and values by a caretaker or anyone else who the person idealizes. If your core perceptions about the world and who you are written off by people you (rightly or wrongly) trust to take care of you and help you navigate the world, and it is almost impossible for you to believe that they could be wrong about anything, it is going to be incredibly difficult to establish your own identity and relationship with the world.

Hey, you know who gets told a lot that their feelings are wrong and that they're mistaken about something at the very core of their being?

Bisexuals.

In addition to the same homophobia that gays and lesbians experience, bisexuals have people calling us "greedy sluts" or even just "indecisive" or "flaky", telling us to "pick a side" or "come out for real already" (i.e. "admit you're _really_ gay"), or saying even if we _actually_ like both, why not just stick with the opposite gender? (i.e. be "normal" if you can be.)  Bisexual women are presumed to be performing a parlor trick for straight men, bisexual men are presumed to be kidding themselves. Bisexuals have our sexuality interrogated down to percentages, with anything other than a 50-50 gender split in our sexual/romantic history being deemed "not actually bisexual" (and even the 50-50 split can be questioned based on intensity of love or length of the relationships). Bisexuals often joke that "the bisexual closet has a revolving door," with every new relationship or mere statement of attraction being taken as your "actual" orientation. Bisexuals also tend to come out later in life than do gays and lesbians, because we spend so much more time scrutinizing our own feelings and romantic/sexual histories to be "sure" our feelings one way or the other haven't just been flukes or the pressure of a heteronormative society, or we just don't want to deal with the comments and invalidation. And as recently as March 20, 2014, _The New York Times_ published an article about ["The Scientific Quest to Prove Bisexuality Exists"](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/23/magazine/the-scientific-quest-to-prove-bisexuality-exists.html?_r=0), which in part describes a current ongoing study to do just that. Yes, even in some otherwise "progressive" corners of society, bisexuality is still considered more hypothetical than the Higgs boson.

If one is already predisposed (genetically or whatever it may be) to develop a mental disorder which includes "unstable identity/weak sense of self" as a primary trait and is notably exacerbated by having one's feelings invalidated, throw bisexuality into that mix and I think it's fair to say you've got yourself one hell of a psychological crucible.

Unfortunately, much of the material I have been able to find about BPD in the LGBT population is woefully inadequate when it's not downright offensive. However, one thing is agreed upon, and that is that there is a higher incidence of BPD among the LGBT population than the general population. At the same time, the little queer-positive literature on BPD I've found tends to speculate that sexual questioning may be misinterpreted as an indication of unstable self-identity, or that queer sexuality may come under greater scrutiny as "reckless sexual behavior" indicated in Criterion 4, leading to  _false_ diagnoses. While both concerns certainly have some basis in reality (the latter is not infrequently implied in other lay psychological texts), neither side seems to consider the fairly obvious suspect of _identity invalidation_ by family or other emotionally influential people. Meanwhile, the few statistical breakdowns of queer people with BPD by "letter" that I have found are inconsistent and from relatively small sample sizes (though two of the three do show bisexuals to be the largest group of those samples).

However, going by the terrible things the friends and family of people with BPD say about them behind their backs on message boards, bisexuals with BPD are almost always called "confused" about their sexuality, while stories abound about both gay- and straight-identified people with BPD who regularly have sex with men and women still fervently and stubbornly asserting the same (inaccurate) identity label. It's a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation for bisexuals with BPD-- assert your true sexual identity and have it attributed to your disorder, or use one of the more accepted sexual identity labels and have your "off-label" sexual encounters be used as "proof" that you don't know who you really are. Both reactions only exacerbate your self-doubt about a core part of your own identity.

While Silva's actual sexual identity is left almost deliberately ambiguous in the film, I have long considered him to be canonically bisexual in large part due to the implicit understanding of sexuality-as-identity that he uses in his intimidation of Bond (that I shall elaborate on later), and to a lesser extent because of the recursive reasoning I admit to in the Author's Notes; while bisexuality and BPD are far from always indicative of one another, the way they can be seen to merge in Silva is too tantalizing to ignore.

**Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and BPD**

BPD is commonly co-morbid with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, to the point where some psychologists argue that BPD is just a chronic version of PTSD rooted in childhood trauma (though that would not account for the significant number of people with BPD who did not experience trauma, abuse, or neglect as children), so why do I consider him to have BPD with co-morbid PTSD rather than just PTSD? While people with PTSD often have the hyperaroused emotions that is the hallmark of BPD as well, PTSD does not typically involve the intense fear of abandonment, nor the see-saw of idealization-devaluation of significant others that Silva displays. So anyway, I won't be trying to tease out and separate the strands of BPD from PTSD, since what is there of PTSD is so often the same. Instead, I will focus more on how trauma affects a person with BPD. Again, I encountered something of a deficiency in the lay writings on BPD and PTSD, most of which do not go into much further depth than the first sentence of this paragraph. However, the very nature of BPD makes those with it highly susceptible to PTSD. PTSD can occur after experiencing or witnessing a traumatic event, especially when those events carry a high risk of death or serious injury, and is often seen in combat veterans and sexual assault survivors. 

[Chinese torture techniques](http://www.ishr.org/Methods-of-torture-in-the-People-s-Republic-of-China.1047.0.html) are notoriously brutal, and while I won't speculate on which in particular Tiago might have undergone, what is intriguing is how people with BPD handle chronic pain. According to  _I Hate You--Don't Leave Me_ , people with BPD generally exhibit less sensitivity to acute pain and greater sensitivity to chronic pain in a way that is unique to BPD, probably because "acute pain, especially when self-inflicted, satisfies certain psychological needs" while "ongoing pain, experienced outside the borderline's control, may result in less internal analgesic protection and cause more anxiety." Presuming that Tiago's MI6 service satisfied the self-destructive urges as discussed in Part I, it would explain in part why he was able to put himself in harm's way on a regular basis without notable negative effect. Meanwhile, five months of torture at the hands of the Chinese would almost certainly have taken their toll,  _especially_  given the ultimate revelation of M's betrayal--once he was no longer able to convince himself that his torture was in some way in his service to her. 

It is worth noting that after he confronts M about her betrayal, when she leaves he seems poised to break down into tears, but instead he breaks out in almost raucous laughter. He doesn't actually find anything funny, he is trying to avoid crying, avoid being taken over by the utter despair that he dredged up in order to confront her. Avoidance of any reminder of the traumatic event is a key component of PTSD, and after forcing himself to bring it up, laughter is his only possible escape in that tiny cell (for now, anyway). 

All of this is important to keep in mind when you consider that he must have been fairly high-functioning as an agent, to be called "brilliant" by M and have been her then-favorite. Even accounting for the aspects of BPD that wouldn't necessarily pass muster in ordinary life but would be passable or even desirable in a Bond-universe MI6 agent-- excessive drinking, sex, and gambling, recklessness with one's personal safety--Tiago Rodriguez simply _can't_ have been as divorced from sanity and reality as Raoul Silva is. Which means that the trauma of his Chinese torture almost certainly broke something in him that allowed him to "pass" as reasonably neurotypical. While I will discuss in Part III a specific theory regarding the tempering of his worst emotional extremes while at Station H, it's worth contemplating how he must have been before and after.

**Other Co-Morbidities and Expressions of BPD**

Histrionic Sub-type

Many of the "Cluster B" personality disorders (Anti-Social, Borderline, Histrionic, and Narcissistic) overlap, and people with one can often have unique traits of another. The DSM-5 actually removed Histrionic Personality Disorder as a discrete diagnosis and classified it as a sub-type of the others, because it almost never occurs on its own or as the dominant disorder. Silva displays shades of the former HPD, which is "characterized by a pattern of excessive emotions and attention-seeking, including inappropriately seductive behavior and an excessive need for approval." The two former DSM criteria that I believe he most manifests are "shows self-dramatization, theatricality, and exaggerated expression of emotion," and "considers relationships to be more intimate than they actually are." His theatricality is self-evident in almost everything he does, from his opening speech when he first meets Bond, to when he "makes an entrance" at Skyfall. Meanwhile, his relationship with M in Hong Kong, while I do believe it was closer than typical between agents and section chiefs, the way her relationship with Bond is, was in all likelihood not nearly as intimate as he believed it to be. Unlike Bond, Tiago was probably unable to separate the more intimate personal relationship from the professional relationship, and certainly could not see that the professional took precedent. Which is why it's when M says to him, "Regret is unprofessional," that he takes on a darker tone. He emphasizes, "I protected _your_ secrets, I protected _you_." Not the British government's secrets, _M's_ secrets, and he expects her to be both grateful and contrite for his suffering and resilience, when as far as M is concerned, they were both just doing their jobs (as Bond reassures her at Skyfall).

Two other DSM traits he arguably shows are "consistently uses physical appearance to draw attention to self" and "has a style of speech that is excessively impressionistic and lacking in detail," however I'm not entirely convinced those are regular behaviors. After all, he also shows he's perfectly capable of dressing to blend in (in a police uniform), and being able to _not_ draw attention to oneself is important when one has been both a spy and a supposedly dead spy/cyberterrorist. And while he often makes sweeping statements and omits details any time he speaks at length, he's usually trying to make his own point and any broad statements and omissions are just as likely due to rhetorical strategy as to another personality disorder. Also, while he does indulge in another DSM criterion, some "inappropriate sexually seductive or provocative behavior" when interacting with Bond and to a lesser extent Sévérine, I'm inclined to believe both were meticulously calculated behaviors for those moments rather than manifestations of a psychological instincts. However, if all of the above were regular behaviors and psychological impulses, I would not be very surprised.

Relationships

Silva's relationship with Sévérine also shows or at least implies features that would not be unlikely to see in a person with BPD's relationships. We know he "saved" her from the sex trade, and she probably thought she loved him for some time. By the time of  _Skyfall_ , he no longer trusts her to move about freely and saddles her with an excessive amount of "bodyguards" to control her. She shakes at the very mention of him and asks Bond to kill him, yet she carries a Beretta of her own. Is it purely self-preservation that prevents her from making an attempt on his life? For whatever reason, Silva exerts such control over her that he allows her to be armed despite knowing he can't trust her. It seems unlikely that this control is maintained by physical violence, especially since Sam Mendes has also discussed how Silva's primary tool is provoking "uncomfortableness" in his targets, not visceral fear. In fact people with BPD are far less likely to be violent to others, relying more instead on psychological manipulation, including threats to harm or kill themselves or _provoking_ violence against themselves in order to guilt the other person into acquiescing to their desires. Perhaps that is why he allows her a pistol and why she does not consider it a tool for her escape--she has come to see it more as a tool of his own control and does not want to give him the satisfaction of using it against him.

There's also the intriguing question of why Silva would "rescue" a sex worker in the first place? Sévérine saw him as a way out, believed she loved him, indicating that it was not a simple case of him possibly purchasing her to be his personal sex slave. We see her conduct business on his behalf, presenting the stolen Modigliani to the Shanghai art collector (even if it was just a ruse to assassinate him). An early draft of the script indicated that she was the one who stole it in the first place. He also sends her to pick up Bond and bring him to his island. She was more than just his mistress, but he didn't care about her at all by the time of _Skyfall_ , describing her as a superfluous thing in his life to be eliminated. But why even act like he cared about her in the first place? I believe this goes back to the self-definition through others of Criterion 2.

A case discussed in _I Hate You--Don't Leave Me_ describes a man who "would cling obsessively to...women, showering them with gifts and attention. Through them he felt whole, alive, and fulfilled. But he demanded from them...total obedience. In this way he felt in control, not only of them but more important of his own existence." While "owning" someone might seem more conducive to a sense of control, if Silva saw Sévérine more as an extension of himself than her own person (at least at first) he would not feel the need to outright enslave her, and treating her well in the beginning would feel like a form of self-care, rather than genuine love for her as another human being. He may even have believed he loved her as well, perhaps projecting something of his own traumatized, broken self on her, and by "saving" her he thought he could save himself. Either way, she would interpret his actions as love and affection for her, which she "returned" for a time before realizing it was all a lie.  

Alternatively (or perhaps supplemental to the above), Silva may have something in common with a man from another case study, who would pursue women he considered "inaccessible," but "whenever his overtures were accepted, he immediately devalued the woman as no longer desirable." Keeping Sévérine as a sex slave would remove the "challenge" of becoming her savior, but having accepted him as such, he may have lost interest soon thereafter. This interpretation would also reflect on his relationship with M. M, despite playing favorites, still keeps Bond at a certain emotional distance, and presumably did the same to Tiago as well. Part of his obsession with M may well have been borne of that emotional distance. Maybe Silva did just "need a hug," not to comfort him, but to cause him to lose interest in M entirely.

Identity as Intimidation

Another indication that Silva struggles with an unstable self-identity is the fact that he uses it as a tool of intimidation. If he personally feels at his worst, empty and upset, when he's faced with the feeling of not knowing who he really is, it would follow that he would consider trying to provoke the same feeling in others, especially since his primary weapon is, as Mendes said, making people feel uncomfortable. Which is why it makes sense that first thing Silva does when he meets Bond it to attempt to deconstruct and break down Bond’s identity and overall sense of self. Silva waltzes in to that room and starts picking apart Bond’s loyalties—to M, to “the Empire”, and MI6, he scoffs at them and gives Bond some good reasons to question them as well. (M lied about him passing his evaluations, after almost killing him three months earlier). He mentions that he was once M’s favorite too (you’re not that special, Bond), and that he was twice the agent Bond was (you’re _really_ not that special). He also holds his technological advancement over Bond’s head (much as Q does earlier) and pokes at that insecurity some more. He mocks Bond’s inability to shoot straight, both with his marksmanship score and setting up the whole William Tell game to taunt him (and really, who is James Bond if he can’t shoot?), which also challenges his self-image as the dashing hero who saves women from villains' clutches when he fails to save Sévérine.

It is also in this context that Silva attempts to sexually unsettle Bond, not with an outright “I could do whatever I wanted to you right now,” but instead a series of “offers” and questions and gentle caresses. Bond's response, "What makes you think this is my first time?" is literally the exact opposite of what Silva was expecting or aiming for; rather than feeling his sexual identity was being challenged, Bond indicates that perhaps his sexuality is more nuanced than Silva (or the audience) suspected, or at least his sexual identity is secure enough that nothing will unsettle it. For someone like Silva, who probably had his sexual identity questioned and challenged from the moment it began to take shape, such a reaction is nigh unthinkable and for the first time in his opening routine, he seems ever so slightly thrown off course.

Other Manifestations

Another common manifestation of BPD is in childlike affect display. Especially under stress, they tend to act more and more childish, such as speaking in a higher pitch and regressive vocabulary. The most obvious manifestation of this trait is in identifying M as "Mother" and "Mommy". And when he sees her again for the first time in 15 years, the first time since she gave him up to the Chinese, his voice gets higher in pitch and his first comment is "You're smaller than I remember!" When she claims to barely remember him, he pouts. His voice goes up in pitch again as he recounts the most emotionally painful parts of his torture-- the realization that M betrayed him, identifying his cyanide capsule as his only option, and coming to the belief that he had survived to look in her eyes one last time. He also, right before blasting a hole in the Tube to drop a train on Bond, refers to the radio which triggers the explosion as a "prize...a gift from my local toy store". While lobbing grenades at Skyfall, he yells into the house "Can't your friend come out and say hello?"

Even his assertions about his previous relationship with M-- “I was her favorite”, “you liked me so much”-- have a tinge of the playground to them. You can’t imagine Bond describing his relationship with M in those words. And perhaps most illustrative of all, how he reacts to seeing M wounded: his voice reaches its highest pitch of the film as he says, “You’re hurt. You’re hurt!” and his expression is one of confusion. In that moment he resembles a scared little boy far more than he does a battle-hardened ex-agent and terrorist. Individually, any one of these forms of expression could just be seen as a rhetorical quirk, perhaps intentionally childish. But taken as a whole, they show a pattern of behavior: a grown man prone to expressing himself like a child during emotionally charged situations

* * *

 

Analyzing Silva's behavior throughout _Skyfall_ through the lens of Borderline Personality Disorder brings a whole new level of nuance and clarity to his motives and actions. Instead of being a mere collection of tropes (however masterfully executed they may be), it allows us to see connections between seemingly unrelated behaviors and actions and illuminates the possibilities and probabilities of his life beyond the film, making him a cohesive, fully human character.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part III will explore how Tiago Rodriguez's BPD might have gone undetected throughout his service at MI6, and how it may have helped him become the brilliant agent he was, in addition to the thematic resonances a diagnosis of BPD brings to the film.


	3. Part III - Borderline Undercover

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we explore how Tiago's BPD might have escaped detection at MI6, contributed to his success as a spy, and how this diagnosis add further dimension to the questions raised throughout the film as a whole.

The question I’m sure you’re asking by now is “If he had such a potentially (and ultimately) destructive and stigmatized personality disorder which would have clear manifestations by adolescence, how the hell was he approved for service at MI6, and how did it go undetected for 11 years?” The key word there is “adolescence”, since, going roughly by Javier Bardem’s real age, we can speculate that Tiago could have been as young as 17 when he was recruited. Psychologists even today, but especially in the mid-1980s, are hesitant to diagnose any adolescent with a personality disorder, especially Borderline, because the normal neurobiological changes of puberty can cause the exact same symptoms. At most, the psychologist would recommend re-evaluation a year or two later. If even this was the case, it’s entirely possible that MI6, so desirous of recruiting this computer prodigy, would have welcomed him regardless of any warning signs, banking on the statistical likelihood that he wouldn’t have BPD.

Another reason why it could have gone undetected all those years is that he was happy. Though BPD, like other mental disorders like bipolar and depression, can cause moods unrelated to external factors, external factors can have a net positive effect. We know “he was a brilliant agent”, we know he was devoted to M, and after living the teenage boy dream of becoming a spy and being given unprecedented access to the most advanced computer tech he’d ever touched may well have put him on a perpetual high. Plus, if he were on a probationary basis or even just because he was new, he probably wouldn’t have been put in harm’s way or any other situation likely to cause a downswing of his mood. And psychologists are not in the habit of reading symptoms of a disordered mind in someone who is happy, despite the number of disorders that involve periods of intense happiness or euphoria. People with BPD can be going to therapy for years before they are diagnosed. A young man who only sees a psychologist once a year is not likely to be diagnosed, especially if he’s been in a great mood in the days or weeks leading up to it. Even if he were evaluated every year, the fact that previous years showed little to no signs of BPD, would make diagnosis less and less likely each year.

Another possible contributing factor is that BPD traits also lend themselves quite well to being a spy. Manipulativeness, intense loyalty, a high degree of self-destructiveness and impulsivity, for example; and in the James Bond universe, promiscuity and seduction are apparently useful spying tools. Taking into account his shades of histrionic— a certain theatricality, a flair for performance would also be a boon in living a spy’s multiple lives, as would the BPD trait of “trying on” different identities.

The black-and-white thinking and weak self-image of BPD also lend themselves to a perfectionist streak, which could have contributed not just to his general brilliance as an agent, but even his astronomical skills as a hacker. One case study in  _I Hate You--Don't Leave Me_  describes a woman who "could pursue a particular interest...relentlessly, almost obsessively, but each success spurred ever higher, and more unrealistic, demands." With that sort of drive applied to a skill like computer programming, it's not impossible to think he could grow up to commit feats that "only about six people in the world" could do (his laptop's security protocols), or that even "should have been impossible" (hacking MI6's utilities).

All of that is all well and good, you may be thinking, but surely MI6's psychologists are better than that, surely within eleven years he would have had at least one bad episode that would have aroused too much concern. True-- unless he had, for all intents and purposes, "cured" himself for the duration of his tenure there. There is a small yet vital clue in the film that is tantalizingly suggestive of how his BPD escaped detection: just prior to his escape from the glass cell, Silva is shown meditating. The only clinically-proven effective treatment for BPD is Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), which is based on Zen Buddhist principles of mindfulness and meditative practices are strongly encouraged. Still sound specious? Well, it just so happens there is a massive Ch’an (Zen) monastery in Hong Kong. I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to suggest that a man who is shown meditating in the film may well have picked up the practice in the Chinese city in which he spent almost half of his adult life where a notable Buddhist monastery is located; the fact that said monastery is of the precise school of Buddhism from which DBT, the most effective treatment for BPD, is derived is too much of a coincidence to ignore. It is plausible that Tiago took up Zen meditation with gusto (possibly even converting to Buddhism) soon after his arrival to Hong Kong, and had gotten the worst extremes of his BPD under control by the time he was re-evaluated (and note that one can meet as many as four of the DSM criteria and be considered neurotypical), all without even knowing he had it in the first place.

However, even proper DBT is not a cure. When implemented effectively, it essentially puts the disorder into remission (i.e. reduces the active manifestations to four or fewer criteria). Severe trauma, perhaps something like being tortured for five months, can trigger a relapse. What's worse, Chinese prisons are also notorious for cracking down on prisoners who meditiate, the practice that theoretically had literally been keeping him sane for over a decade. It would be quite understandable if he was never able to get quite the same benefit from it after escaping, especially since he had no motivation (like a job he loved) to want to get his emotions under control, not when there was a far greater motivation (the very hurt and rage at betrayal and abandonment that is a hallmark of BPD) to harness their destructive potential.

But it should not be forgotten that his tools of destruction were in large part given to or nurtured in him by MI6 itself, and his trauma the result of the unsavory side of geopolitics that allows one nation to use one of its most loyal agents as a barganing chip in treaty negotiations with another. This is important to remember because I want to stress that his BPD did not "make" him a villain. My intent in "diagnosing" him is not to demonize and further stigmatize people with BPD, but rather to humanize him and provoke deeper discussion. I want to go several layers deeper into the questions the film asks. Where  _Skyfall_ raised the question "Was M justified in giving up one of her own agents to certain torture and almost certain death?", I want to explore whether the answer would be different in light of the very specific propensities of BPD, even if she didn't know he had it. Do we as human beings owe others an extreme level of care "just in case"? Does one who suffers greater trauma due to an unknown disorder deserve greater compensation (or is more justified in seeking retribution) for his injuries when the one responsible had no reason to suspect said disorder? Which matters more, the pain we intend or the pain we actually cause? At what point does the suffering we cause stop being our responsibility, if it stops at all? 

I want to shift the discussion from "His relationship with M was unhealthy because he was creepy and obsessed" to "His relationship with M was unhealthy because he felt her approval validated his entire existence." I want to explore how identity affects how we might expect someone like Tiago/Silva (a bisexual colonial) to react and behave in an environment that does not validate his whole self: How his English co-workers may have looked upon his Iberian roots; how both the ethnic Chinese in Hong Kong and the Chinese agents who tortured him viewed him as a European and vestige of the imperial power that subjugated them for over a century; how Cold War era fears of blackmail restricted how much of his sexuality he could express while retaining a career which had itself become an intrinsic part of his identity; and on a meta-textual level, how does his sexuality fit into the spy genre, especially the traditionally uber-heterosexual Bond franchise? And how would all of these identity crises that he would face on a daily basis affect him as someone with a pathologically weak sense of self and sensitivity to rejection?

* * *

These are but a few of the discussions I believe Silva's character intrinsically raises, regardless of whether or not he "really" has Borderline Personality Disorder. But it is largely because of how deeply entwined these issues of identity and abandonment are to Silva's motivation that I believe BPD to be the most cohesive and likely explanation for his behavior and emotional reactions throughout the whole of  _Skyfall_. Whether or not you ultimately agree is entirely up to you, but I hope this meta at least got you thinking about his character in a more complex and nuanced way. Most importantly, I hope that you come away with greater empathy for real people with BPD and other notorious mental disorders. And if you have BPD or related disorder, I am very eager to hear from you: what I got wrong, what I got right, or whether I wholly misunderstood and misrepresented your inner life. I am totally open to revisions, corrections and addenda to be as accurate and empathetic as possible when discussing a Bond villain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bibliography and Resources:
> 
> Kreisman, MD, Jerold J. and Hal Straus. _I Hate You— Don’t Leave Me_ , (2nd ed.) New York; Penguin Books, 2010.
> 
> Van Gelder, Kiera. _The Buddha and the Borderline_. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications, Inc., 2010.


End file.
